We live in a suspension world. Full suspension sales dominate almost all categories. While suspension is increasingly sophisticated, with ever-longer travel, it’s not necessarily better performing—unless it's properly set up. The challenge for companies selling full suspension bikes and suspension components is ensuring their customers achieve correct setup so the rider can enjoy the full benefit of properly working suspension.

In recent years, we've seen many creative tools designed to help achieve proper setup. Specialized introduced its AutoSag system in 2012; RockShox prints sag guides directly onto the fork leg; Trek and Pivot include clip-on sag guides with many of their models and many bikes have markings that provide visual cues for setting proper sag.

Increasingly, these tools are moving to the digital realm. Cane Creek recently launched its Double Barrel Lounge, an online resource for owners of the company’s Double Barrel and DBAir shocks that provides, among other things, setup information and tuning tips.

Now, Fox Shox takes setup tools to your smartphone with its free IRD (Intelligent Ride Dynamics) app. Currently for Apple's iPhone (a version for the Android OS is in the works), the app is designed for 2013 Fox products. It provides initial air pressure recommendations, uses the phone's camera to check sag (and, if necessary, suggest refinements to air pressure) and offers a suggested rebound damping tune.

At present, the app works with 2013 32- and 34 series air sprung CTD forks and all Float shocks, including Trek's DRCV. Support for 36-series forks, Cannondale's DYAD and Specialized AutoSag shocks will be added soon. The app currently does not work with coil sprung shocks but that capability may be added to future versions of the application. Fox says it is investigating adding setup info for previous model years, but offers no guarantees or timeline.

The app is oriented towards less-experienced riders, with step-by-step instructions bordering on exhaustive. The information provided is basic, designed only to achieve a good baseline and does not offer solutions if the rider wants to further fine-tune the ride. That said, it's extremely handy as an initial setup guide for any rider, as long as the bike has 2013 Fox suspension, of course.

We tested the app on an iPhone 4 and found it works very well. A couple things to note: First, the rebound knob direction arrows are oriented as if you are looking down on the knob; on a fork, that means the bike is turned over so the rebound knob is facing up. Second, use a steady hand when using the sag-check feature through the camera. Shake too much and the app incorrectly reads the O-ring's location. At the end of setup, the app offers to save the details (you can save multiple bikes/setups) so you can access the setup information without walking through the process again.